BORDERLINE SALTY

On this episode, hosts Rick Martinez and Carla Lalli Music discuss deepening chocolatey flavor, finding balance with fish sauce, and handling wet burgers. 

Also, Chef Missy Robbins joins the show to discuss her Total Kitchen Nightmare involving a classic salt-sugar mix-up. 

This week’s recipe book:

As always, we’d love to hear about your cooking conundrums at 833-433-FOOD (3663). 

Find us on Instagram @borderlinesalty

Find full episode transcripts and more about the podcast on our website borderlinesalty.fm. 

If you can’t get enough of our hosts – we don’t blame you! Subscribe to Carla's newsletters here and find links to her Instagram and YouTube channel at www.carlalallimusic.com. 

You can order Rick’s cookbook “Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico here, watch the companion Mi Cocina video series here, and find all of his socials at www.rick-martinez.com

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

Rick Martinez: Hi, I'm Rick Martinez, and I am a cookbook author, video host, and I'm always on Do Not Disturb. 

Carla Lalli Music: I'm Carla Lalli Music. I'm also a cookbook author, video host and I'm a night person. 

Rick Martinez: And this is Borderline Salty, the show where we take your calls, boost your confidence and make you a better, smarter, happier cook. 

Carla Lalli Music: Today, we'll discuss fish sauce, the perfect burger and speak to a very special guest for Total Kitchen Nightmare. 

Rick Martinez: The Queen of Pasta herself, Missy Robbins. 

Carla Lalli Music: But before we get into all that, Rick, tell me something good. 

Rick Martinez: That is Mexican coffee. 

Carla Lalli Music: There he is. 

Rick Martinez: I was traveling is is probably about two years ago I was traveling to a town called Querétaro, and I always look for good coffee shops wherever I go. And I came across this tiny little coffee shop and the owner, Mauricio, he roasted his own coffee. And so we totally hit it off. He's like, he's just like, really chill kind of a stoner. And if you ride your bike to his coffee shop, he gives you a discount. 

Carla Lalli Music: Amazing. 

Rick Martinez: There's just like such a cool little experience, and Mauricio and I became really good friends and I told him that I was going to travel the country researching my book. And he said, Well, when you start traveling around in the the southern and eastern part of the country, let me know and I'll hook you up with some coffee farmers. 

Carla Lalli Music: Ooh.

Rick Martinez: Oh my God. So I get into Veracruz, which is on the Gulf Coast, and I hit him up and he sure enough, he sure enough, hooked me up with like these amazing producers that not only grow coffee, but vanilla beans and cinnamon and allspice and mandarins. And like, I'm walking through this farm and I'm like, this is the most magical place. Like all of my favorite things grow here. 

Carla Lalli Music: Wow. 

Rick Martinez: And so once the the pandemic hit and I couldn't, I couldn't travel around anymore, everybody in New York was saying, there's a major coffee shortage. You need to like buy as much coffee as you possibly can before it locks down in Mexico. And I was like, Oh my God. So I texted Mauricio and I was like, I need 10 kilos of coffee right now. And um, yeah, so 10 kilos showed up and actually, I was hooked. And ever since that moment, I only buy coffee from Mauricio. 

Carla Lalli Music: Wow.

Rick Martinez: This amazing roaster in Querétaro.

Carla Lalli Music: That's so cool. And you're a Chemex guy, right? 

Rick Martinez: 100 percent, love Chemex.

Carla Lalli Music: 100 percent, love Chemex every day. And do you put anything in it? 

Rick Martinez: Nope. Just black. 

Carla Lalli Music: No. 

Rick Martinez: And and actually, I was. So when I messaged Mauricio and I tell him that I need more coffee. I'm just like, Send me whatever is good. And so he'll just send me like 250 grams of eight different varieties of coffee, and it just makes me happy. Every cup is a little bit different. 

Carla Lalli Music: Shout out, Mauricio. 

Rick Martinez: Yay. So, Carla. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yes. 

Rick Martinez: You tell me something good. 

Carla Lalli Music: Well, this week I achieved a major goal of the year. I think I mentioned, Jesus motherfucker, sorry. 

Rick Martinez: I think I mentioned Jesus motherfucker. Yeah, I think I remember that. 

Carla Lalli Music: And this is why AirPods just fall out of my ears. OK. So this week, actually, I achieved a major goal of 2022. I don't believe in resolutions, but in January I had two goals. I don't remember what the first one was, so I probably haven't done it. But the second one was I wanted to deadlift 200 pounds, which had been a goal for a while. But I was like, This is this is it, we're going to do this. And on Tuesday, I lifted 200 pounds. 

Rick Martinez: Amazing. Woo! 

Carla Lalli Music: Thank you. Thank you so much. It was really awesome. Like, what's awesome about it, and I've been doing strength training for a few years and what I've learned from it is there's the physical strength, but it has also taught me like very real mental strength because some days you can do it and some days you can't. And then a different day, you can do it and another day you can't. And it just doesn't mean you're weak when you can't do it. It just means like you couldn't do it that day. But like, you can do it a different day. So it's been like a really awesome, unexpected like upside of lifting weights has been just feeling stronger in other in other ways. However, nothing can compare it to the sheer like thrill of just lifting that much weight up off the floor. It was awesome. 

Rick Martinez: Well, you're absolutely glowing.

Carla Lalli Music: Thank you.

Rick Martinez: Like, I don't know if that's a new filter or the fact that you just power lifted 200 pounds. That's amazing. It's time for questions! 

Carla Lalli Music: Let us now get into caller questions. 

Caller 1: Hey, Carla and Rick, my name is Orient. I have a question about the chocolate recipe. Like, what do you do to add depth of flavor for chocolatey things, sauces, cakes, cookies, anything like that? 

Rick Martinez: OK. Rapid-Fire chocolate. How do you make it more chocolaty? I add coffee. 

Carla Lalli Music:  Uh, combine two kinds of coffee. 

Rick Martinez: Piloncillo.

Carla Lalli Music: Salt. 

Rick Martinez: Molasses.

Carla Lalli Music: Cocoa powder and cocoa solids. 

Rick Martinez: Chili.

Carla Lalli Music: Adobo. 

Rick Martinez: Apple cider vinegar. 

Carla Lalli Music: What are you crazy, really? 

Rick Martinez: Yeah. 

Carla Lalli Music: Because of sour and bitter? 

Rick Martinez: Yeah. Chocolate is a little bit acidic already, but if you're making a cake that can take a little bit more of a bump, I think it's really good.

Carla Lalli Music: Umm, quality chocolate, I mean. 

Rick Martinez: Obviously, yeah, dark chocolate. 

Carla Lalli Music: 100 percent chocolate. 

Rick Martinez: Ooh, oh, black cocoa powder. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah. Do you ever put chocolate in chili? 

Rick Martinez: Uh, I haven't. I mean, I've obviously put it in moles and like more typical Mexican sauces, but that's an interesting idea. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, my mom always makes a beef chili that has some unsweetened cocoa in it.

Rick Martinez: Wait, unsweetened cocoa powder or?

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, cocoa powder. 

Rick Martinez: Really? 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah. 

Rick Martinez: Interesting, also, I think whenever you are testing recipes, you want to stick with one variable because otherwise, if you change five things, you're not going to know which thing made the difference. Also, the more things you change, the less likely it's going to be that you're going to achieve like a really positive result. And I also think depending on, you know, what your chocolaty recipe is, if it's a cake or a cookie, you want to stay away from liquidy things, so. Instead of adding liquid coffee, then you know, actually a little bit of espresso powder or instant espresso granules add a lot of flavor without the liquid because a liquid all will change your your chemical formula for the perfect cookie or cake. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, I think we gave a lot of like chocolate ideas of combining chocolates, percentages of chocolates, types of quality of chocolate and then some flavor enhancers like the salt, the chili, the cider vinegar. So maybe like one from each column and not like three different flavor enhancers with two of the chocolate ideas. Borderline Salty, you've reached us during working hours. 

Caller 2: Hey, I'm Mike. Whenever I make a burger it's wet, it drips like crazy. Feel like I've tried a lot of stuff, you know, hard sears, long resting times, different fat percentages in the mixture. Some turn out better than others, but I seem to always end up with like a tablespoon that's like gray meat oil sludge on my plate when I'm done. I don't understand how the fast food industry serves like a million barrels a day, but I can't manage a perfect one. I need your help! 

Rick Martinez: Ooh, wet burgers. 

Carla Lalli Music: I think the key phrase for me was gray meat oil sludge. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah, that sounded really delicious. Yeah, so you used to work for Shake Shack. So tell me about gray wet burger oil sludge. 

Carla Lalli Music: See at first. When is said Wet Burger? It's like you don't want a dry burger, right? Sort of dry is the opposite of wet, then I would take the wet burger over the dry burger.

Rick Martinez: Right. 

Carla Lalli Music: But I think there's something different between the good kind of juicy burger grease that is kind of dripping into the bun or dripping into your wrists when you're having a burger, which is, I think, desirable. And what he is talking about, which is it's the sludge part that sounds different, and the sludge makes me think of coagulated protein like the stuff that oozes out the side. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah, I think that's what he is referring to. And I also think that potentially he's not giving enough rest time for the burger because it sounds like all the juices are coming out. 

Carla Lalli Music: It sounds like he's doing a hard sear, which is good, and maybe he's going a little too hard, he's overcooking and then with all the carry-over heat, the sludge is happening. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah, if he's trying to cook them well-done, then that's just what's going to happen. You're going to just cook all the juice out of the burger. But I also think that he might be poking or pressing like one personal pet peeve of mine, I hate it when people press burgers. Mm hmm. And I'm not talking about Smash, because smash, obviously you smash it. But like while it's on the grill or the griddle and people are like, they're poking it with the spatula or like pushing it down, it's like you're pushing all the juices out, right? Just leave it alone. Like you flip it once you don't poke. You don't push it, you don't press it, just let it go, so I think that that also might be contributing to the sludge effect. 

Carla Lalli Music: And one other tip I would give him is like for things that are thin and quick cooking, you need to maximize the browning on one side. So just like go all in like exactly what you said, put it down. Press it. Season it. Let it go. And then don't try to get that same sear on the second side, it's never going to happen, A, and B, you're going to overcook the burger. So I think he just needs to like max out color and caramelization on one side, and that will leave it juicy, like the proteins are going to tighten anyway. And if you continue pressing on them, like you're going to press them all the way out. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah. And this is another one of those rare, I think, or rare ish occasions where high heat is necessary, you need high heat. You need a big surface area. So whether that's the biggest skillet you own or a big griddle or a flat top because you don't want things close together or they'll steam that will also contribute to your your gray sludge. You give your burger space and give them really crazy heat. 

Carla Lalli Music: OK, wet burgers forever. I know what I'm calling my fast food restaurant. 

Rick Martinez: Wet Burger. I'd like a number three: two wet burgers, an order of fries and a chocolate shake, please. 

Carla Lalli Music:  I'll take the same, but with wet onion on top. 

Rick Martinez: Extra soggy, please. Line two, you're on. 

Caller 3: Fish sauce. That's scary and salty. 

Rick Martinez: That is the best question ever. Wait, is it even a question? It's just a statement. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yes, it is true. Well, maybe the scary part I don't agree with. But yeah, fish sauce is salty. Fish sauce is not a sauce that you put on fish, although it can be part of a sauce that you put on fish, but it's at its most elemental, this is a condiment. A sauce made from usually anchovies, a single type of fish, anchovies and salt which are left to ferment. And then the liquid that they create is really the base of the sauce plus water. So when you're shopping for fish sauce, it is important to look on the label. And if you see more than those ingredients, the fish, the salt and the water, it could be an indication of a not as high quality fish sauce. So I would start there, buy the best one that you can. And fish sauce is strongly flavored. It's salty, it's pungent, a lot of deep, savory flavors. It definitely has some fishy notes, but no one's going to tell you to just take a shot to the face, either. 

Rick Martinez: That's true. I mean, it's a lot like other concentrated elements like vanilla extract or molasses or Worcestershire sauce, right? If you took a big gulp of any of those things, you may not be very happy with the result. And yet when you make a cake with vanilla or when you put the Worcestershire in a barbecue sauce or you when you put molasses in a cookie, there's something that is so incredibly delicious about it. And without those ingredients, it would be very flat and it would be almost unpleasant so I think it is one of those ingredients that you kind of have to work your way into finding the balance that's right for you. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah. And fish sauce, I think freaks people out who haven't had it because of the name or the idea that it is fermented fish, somehow, but it's like any other fermented sauce, like any other pickle. That's how this like deep, deep, rich and amazing transformative flavors come from. So even like the most elemental Vietnamese sauce, nuoc cham, which is fish sauce, water, lime juice, sugar, all of those ingredients are there for a reason. Like the lime juice, the sourness is balancing out the saltiness, and the sweetness is balancing out the funk and the sharpness. And then you end up with this thing that is like more delicious than the sum of its parts. So, I also really love using fish sauce at the end of like meaty braises. It just adds, especially with lamb. I just think lamb and anchovy is such a classic flavor combo. But like a beautiful lamb braise that you finish with a few drops of fish sauce in addition to some vinegar. It just really adds this roundness and mystery. And like, it's a little bit like what people say about anchovies like you won't know it's in the dish, but you'll miss it if it's gone. 

Rick Martinez: Completely and once you develop that understanding of how to use it and the deep love of it, I mean, then you can go all the way to making a fish sauce caramel. Do you remember? 

Carla Lalli Music: Mm yes, Oh my God. 

Rick Martinez: I did those the fried Brussels sprouts with the fish sauce caramel.

Carla Lalli Music: Yes, and for wings, you can make chicken wings in a fish sauce, caramel or crab fat caramel. Oh my God. 

Rick Martinez: It just it's a very assertive flavor that pairs well with other assertive elements, and it just brings out the best in those things. And so I use it quite often in many, many dishes. 

Carla Lalli Music:  Yeah, the joy of food is like tasting and discovering these other flavors that that you haven't brought into your cooking yet. And that is like an amazing and magical thing when you get to taste something you haven't had before. Like, lean into it. This is this is a good thing. 

Rick Martinez: Right, it's going to change your cooking. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, give it a try. Borderline Salty, Carla speaking. 

Caller 4: Hey, it's Alissa. My biggest pet peeve is when I'm in the kitchen, especially if I just got my nails done, my nails end up chipping. How do you keep your nails from tipping when you're cooking, washing everything. All of that. Like, how do you stop your nails from chipping in and keep your manicure on point? I need tips, please. 

Rick Martinez: Gel, one million percent. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah. Switching to gel manicures is the reason I can wear any. I didn't wear polish for like ten years. It was fine. But then they like invented gel manicures, and they're indestructible. 

Rick Martinez: Completely, I typically get my nails read gelled once every two weeks, and I'm cooking constantly. I'm shooting all the time. I also dig in the garden and play with my plants. And yeah, no problems whatsoever. And I've never had any problems with the health of my nails, like I've been doing gel for like four or five years. And you know, I know people talk about like, it's bad for your nail bed and and the nail itself gets really thin. I've never had any problem. But I also think that you need to find a salon or if you're doing it yourself, you need to soak them off. Don't scrape them off. 

Carla Lalli Music: That's right.

Rick Martinez: Or don't sand them off. And I think if you do a proper soaking removal, your nail will be fine. 

Carla Lalli Music:Yeah, I learned from Jordan who you introduced me to that the polish doesn't damage your nail. The way that people remove it will damage your nail.

Rick Martinez: 100 percent. Also, if you are in the mood for some beautiful nail art J Money Nail in Brooklyn. 

Carla Lalli Music: Good luck getting an appointment. It's time for our next segment: Total Kitchen Nightmare. 

Rick Martinez: Dun dun dun. In this segment, we're bringing in our friends and culinary heroes to share their kitchen disasters, and this week we are speaking to the one and only Missy Robbins. 

Carla Lalli Music:  It's hard to imagine Missy's ever had a bad day at work because she is the chef owner of two Michelin starred and always packed restaurants here in Brooklyn, Misi and Lila. She's also the coauthor of the gorgeous cookbook Pasta, which came out this past fall. 

Rick Martinez: In 2018, she won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York City and completely deserved it, and was also awarded Esquire's Chef of the Year. 

Carla Lalli Music:  Most importantly, she created the dish of my dreams the pink peppercorn meal [unclear] at Lilia. I dream of them. 

Rick Martinez: Oh my God, I do love [unclear]. I mean, I think we should just go back and order one of everything on the menu. 

Carla Lalli Music: I mean, if you're comparing heaven to like heaven to heaven, it's all heavenly. 

Rick Martinez: It's all shades of heaven. 

Carla Lalli Music: When do they open, five o'clock? Be there? We'll get a spot at the counter. Hi! 

Missy: Hello. 

Rick Martinez: Hi, Missy, how are you? 

Missy: Good. How are you? 

Rick Martinez:  I'm doing so well. Thank you for joining us. 

Missy: Thank you for having me. 

Carla Lalli Music: You look very official. 

Missy: Well, I am in a new apartment with no art on the wall and I have no furniture. So have my computer on a coffee table at a very weird angle. There's like a lot of weird shit going on here. 

Carla Lalli Music: You look like um, you look ready to podcast. 

Missy: Well, I also have nowhere to put the microphone except my hands, so I'm ready to podcast. Rick, where, where are you? 

Rick Martinez: I'm in Mazatlan, Mexico, on the West Coast. 

Missy: OK, well, that sounds nicer than where, where we are. 

Rick Martinez: It is very beautiful here. I'm like a few steps away from the beach. So incredibly happy about that. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, I brought up how I was going to make tuna salad for dinner last night because I was really craving it. And Rick was like, Uh, why? Why do people eat tuna out of a jar can just get it fresh. And I was like, OK.

Missy: Do you know that I've never eaten tuna salad in my life? 

Carla Lalli Music: What?

Rick Martinez: Oh, what a happy life you've led. 

Missy: I have never eaten tuna mixed with mayonnaise. 

Carla Lalli Music: OK.

Rick Martinez: I love you so much more. Like.

Carla Lalli Music: Wow! All right, I'm going to leave then and let you guys just take it from here. 

Rick Martinez: You were my my hero for Pasta, and now I am, you're becoming my idol for your your hatred of tuna salad. Oh my God. 

Carla Lalli Music: Unbelievable. To be fair, the tuna that I ate last night was from Spain. It was very nice.

Missy: But you put mayonnaise in it, I bet. 

Carla Lalli Music:  I put a little bit of mayonnaise on it. I did, but it was packed in oil, so I mostly I did Hellman's in the bowl and an extra drizzle of Kewpie at the table. 

Missy: OK. All right. Well, we know, we know what you're into. 

Carla Lalli Music: My older son loves this dinner, so it's like the rice, the tuna and broccoli d, which is broccoli with cheddar cheese like melted into the skillet until it gets kind of like a freako. 

Missy: OK. How old's your son? 

Carla Lalli Music:  18. You'd get along with the younger one. He refuses to eat it. 

Missy: OK, I like him better already. I'd give up, I'd give up pasta to live in Mexico, I think. 

Rick Martinez: I mean, I don't think you should really have to make that choice, especially now with your book. You can have both, live by the beach and eat pasta. 

Missy: That's right. 

Carla Lalli Music: Which is such a beautiful and incredibly informative book, it makes me actually think that I could roll out fresh pasta and it would come out as perfectly as yours does. 

Missy: Thank you so much, and you can. And it is incredible to see people on social posting what they've made. And it goes to, you know, my co-writer Talia and my editor Lorena are really hammered this terrible chef for better recipes and more concise instructions and more concise measurements. And there was a lot of tears and fighting. And now I'm so happy because I look at the people posting stuff and I'm like, Oh my God, the recipes actually work. 

Carla Lalli Music: Isn't that the most gratifying thing? Well, today we're actually here to talk about what happens when things do go wrong, because not every day in the kitchen is a joy and a pleasure and a success. You know, mistakes, accidents, catastrophes. This is just part of the journey. 

Rick Martinez: Even though it seems as though you are infallible, we believe that at some point in your long, amazing career that something might have happened, that at some point there was a kitchen disaster. 

Missy: I mean, there have been there have been many, but the one like my favorite one, and I come back to the story a lot teaching young cooks, talking about like when I was a young cook, I was 26 about and I was working at a restaurant that's unfortunately now gone, called March, that was an awesome townhouse on the east side. Wayne Nish was the chef. It formed my knowledge of fine dining, so I had been an extern in there, right out of cooking school. And he didn't have any positions open for me when I finished. So I ended up going to work for a woman named Anne Rosenzweig, who had Arcadia at the time and then soon opened Lobster Club. And after two years, Wayne had a position and he called and he said, I know you've always wanted to come back. I have a position. Will you come back? So I started working there and it was just like, so proud, and my time with Anne was amazing. She she was an incredible mentor, a very tough mentor, but an incredible mentor. And Wayne and Anne were doing some charity events together, and Wayne thought it would be really nice to bring me. So I had both my mentors there. And I was like, OK, so Wayne had this signature. I didn't know anything. I was like, literally like a 2nd, 3rd third year line cook and I was like, kind of a little shit. And so it was me and the sous chef. And one other guy, sous chef, was also like kind of a casual dude. And I mean, I'm going to say he kind of screwed me. So Wayne had this signature dish. It was grapefruit. It was a dessert and it was grapefruit macerated in sugar and coriander. It was like pretty simple, but it was delicious and I was in charge of like making it and you took the juice and you added sugar and blah blah blah. And we were in. I don't remember where it was. It was like something like the Yale Club or one of those like clubby places. And I was in this foreign kitchen and I was a stupid young cook and I went to take the the sugar and I didn't taste it to make sure, and I macerated all the grapefruit in salt. 

Carla Lalli Music: Oh, oh, oh god. 

Missy: This was not for a four person dinner. This was 150 people of grapefruit already like supremed, segmented, juiced. And I was like horrified. And I was like, Oh my God, what do I do? Like, I had this whole internal conversation by myself. And I went to the sous chef. I said, Charlie, I said, I screwed up. Like, What do I do? And he goes, he tasted it. And he's like, I don't actually think Wayne will really notice. And I'm like, because I like added sugar once I figured it out and I like, tried to, like, balance it and then we went and got new grapefruit juice, and I was like, you know, thought I was going to have this big moment of, like doing this event. You know, it's one of my first events and with both the people that I worked for and who were so important to date in my my career, and Wayne walked in as chefs do you know, four minutes before service? 

Carla Lalli Music: Exactly. 

Missy: And this guy, Charlie was like, I mean, I'll never forget this. He was like, Wayne will never notice. I almost think he did it on purpose to like, screw me. And Wayne took one bite of the grapefruit pre-service and was like, huh, this tastes a little salty. I was mortified, and I think we ended up serving it, but I was telling the story to one of my sous chefs right before I left to come do this. And and I was like, to this day, I don't pick up a container of a white substance without without tasting it first. I'm like, terrified. I'm like, Is that salt? Is it sugar? Or do I am? I can't mess this up. Am I going to salt my pasta water with sugar instead of salt? I mean, they look pretty different, by the way. But as a young cook in a foreign kitchen, that's not your own and you don't really know where anything is. It's an easy mistake to make, but that's that's probably my that's my biggest one ever, big teaching moment for me. 

Carla Lalli Music: I think this is a classic one because I I actually had a boyfriend and I'm sure he's not listening, he was a terrible boyfriend, but he he tried and there was one here for my birthday. He tried to make me a cake and then I took a bite of it and he had done the exact same thing, but never, never realized it. So we didn't date for that much longer after that. 

Missy: Sounds like probably not. Sounds like definitely not. 

Carla Lalli Music:  For everyone listening. If you have mistaken your salt for your sugar, don't worry. You, too, can become a Michelin star chef one day. 

Rick Martinez: There's hope. 

Missy: Yeah, that's right. 

Carla Lalli Music: The road to success is paved with mistakes well-handled right. Is that the saying? 

Rick Martinez: Also, always taste your white powder.

Carla Lalli Music: Of course. One last question If you were writing the short story version of this tale, what headline would you give it? 

Missy: I mean, he just he just said it: Taste your white powder. 

Carla Lalli Music: Taste your white powder. Before you head out, please let our listeners know Missy, where can people find you? 

Missy: You can find me at Lilia and Misi in Brooklyn, Williamsburg and you can find me @missyarobbins on Instagram. 

Rick Martinez: Thank you so much for being here with such an amazing pleasure. 

Missy: Thank you, guys. Bye, guys. 

Carla Lalli Music: Before we go, it's time for, you guessed it, Rad bad or bad fad? OK, Rick, let me tell you about what I saw this week. 

Tik Tok speaker: So today is day 17 and a half of my Ramen challenge and I'm attempting the Ramen grilled cheese sandwich. My one goal is to not burn it. I buttered up the bread and put it on my skillet, which is just above ultra low heat, cheese, cheese and more cheese. Also, to help with my impatience, I decide to cook the noodles while the bread was toasting, which I guess could have also backfired if I wasn't paying attention. I obsessively checked on the bread to make sure everything was going OK, added the sauce and cheese packets the noodles and then checked on the bread again. And I think the heat was too low, so I turned it up a tad bit. I also decided to add the noodles at this point, flip to one piece onto the other and then increase the heat just a little more since there is no color yet. I checked and flipped this thing so many times because I was so scared, but each time it just looked better and better, and eventually it got the crust, too. So I took it off and wall up a non burnt, spicy noodle grilled cheese sandwich. 

Rick Martinez: Oh my god.

Carla Lalli Music: Wow.

Rick Martinez: What even is that? 

Carla Lalli Music: You didn't see that coming, did you? 

Rick Martinez: No, and I felt like I just rode a rollercoaster. I started out thinking, OK, ramen, grilled cheese. No bad fad. And then by the end, I'm like, I want to eat that. 

Carla Lalli Music: So it's a palindrome of bread, gooey cheese, spicy ramen in the middle. Spicy cheese. Crispy bread. That's a pretty crazy stack. 

Rick Martinez: Can we just also talk about the way that she placed the ramen on the sandwich. It was so incredibly sexy, like completely pornographic, and I think that's what sold me. I was very much in the I was actually preparing my speech after this was over thinking, OK, I am opposed to carb on carb sandwiches. And then I saw that and I was like, OK, well, maybe I should give this a shot. And then at the end, when she's got that beautiful, crispy, deep golden brown crunchy exterior and then the ooey, gooey cheese melting into the nooks and crannies of the Roman, I was like, Good God, I need that in my life. 

Carla Lalli Music: So if you didn't have the crust, I think it would be like a mush pile. 

Rick Martinez: It would be a mush pile. But I mean, I'm just imagining all of those flavors and textures and the goo and the crunch and the brown butter and the Ramen. And oh, oh my god. 

Carla Lalli Music: Do you see yourself making this one? 

Rick Martinez: I do, and I'm angry. Like, I'm really angry at this. Like, I wanted to not like this. In fact, I was even thinking, Oh, she put a lid on a grilled cheese sandwich. It's going to get soggy and dumb and blah and then I was like, I need this. Like literally a lifetime of roller coaster emotions in 15 seconds, it was insane. 

Carla Lalli Music: Wow. OK, well, I think I know the answer, but I would like you to weigh in and tell us officially is Ramen grilled cheese a rad fad or bad fad? 

Rick Martinez: We definitely started in the bad fad camp, but then quickly accelerated like a rocket streaming into Flavortown. Rad fad. 

Carla Lalli Music: Radical, fadical. 

Rick Martinez: And that's it for this week's episode of Borderline Salty. 

Carla Lalli Music: You can find recipes and recommendations from this week's episode in our show notes. 

Rick Martinez: If you have a question or a fear you want us to help you through. You can always leave us a voicemail at eight three three four three three food. 

Carla Lalli Music: That number is eight three three four three three three six six three. 

Rick Martinez: Borderline Salty is an original production by Pineapple Street Studios. We're your hosts, I'm Rick Martinez. 

Carla Lalli Music: I'm Carla Lalli Music. You can find links to our work in the show notes for this episode. 

Rick Martinez: Natalie Brennan is our lead producer. 

Carla Lalli Music:  Janelle Anderson is our producer. 

Rick Martinez: Our managing producer is Agerenesh Ashagre.

Carla Lalli Music: Our assistant producer is Mari Orozco. 

Rick Martinez: Our head of sound and engineering is Raj Makhija. 

Carla Lalli Music: Mixing and engineering by Davey Sumner and Jason Richards. 

Rick Martinez: Our assistant engineers are Sharon Bardales and Jade Brooks.

Carla Lalli Music: Original music from our very own Raj Makhija. 

Rick Martinez: Additional music from Vincent Vega, Spring Gang and Glovebox courtesy of Epidemic Sound. 

Carla Lalli Music:  Legal services for Pineapple Street are provided by Bianca Grimshaw at Granderson des Rochers. 

Rick Martinez: Our executive producers are Max Linsky and Jenna Weiss-Berman. 

Carla Lalli Music: We appreciate Orient, Mike, Alissa and our anonymous fish sauce listener for calling in this week. 

Rick Martinez: And thanks to you for listening. We'll talk to you next week. 

Carla Lalli Music: Until then! 

Rick Martinez: Adios.

Carla Lalli Music: Happy trails to you till we meet again.